Contents of Book Three

Crying Out for Attention

Foreword by Barbara Glare

Chapter 4: Helping hyper-reactive babies.

4.1 Allergies and your family.Are you allergic? A basic questionnaire

4.2 Dealing with a persistently miserable baby.
The abnormal usual Western baby
First focus: resolving any breastfeeding problem
Second focus: the need for support of parents, especially mothers
Third focus: practical problems that can cause crying – other than allergy.

4.3 Checking out allergy as a cause: a rough road map to start from with a distressed baby.
Asking questions and reducing needless irritants
Managing milk supply issues including lactose and fat intolerance
Another older form of intolerance: ‘fatty dyspepsia’?
Beginning the allergy quest
Deciding on maternal diet elimination
Eliminating the candidate food(s)
What next?
The elimination diet
Hospital-based allergy clinics

4.4 Beware the bandersnatch…An aside for all those helping other parents

4.5. Summary of how to proceed when allergy is suspected.Dealing with the young breastfed baby:
Dealing with the partially or wholly formula-fed baby (for lactation consultants and others)

4.6 Fourteen Frequently Asked Questions.Q1. Why is it so hard to work out what causes reactions?
Q2. Should a mother stop breastfeeding and use formula?
Q3. Can babies be allergic to breastmilk?
Q4. Other foods for infants: when?
Q5. Should donor milk be considered for allergic babies?
Q6. Can allergy be prevented?
Q7. Is a vaginal birth important?
Q8. Does pregnancy and lactation diet matter?
Q9. Should breastfeeding mothers avoid common allergens?
Q10. Should mothers take supplements?
Q11. Does this approach to maternal diet work?
Q12. What else might help?
Q13. Why go to this bother if children grow out of allergy?
Q14. Isn’t allergy a family – and individual – responsibility?

Chapter 5: More about manifestations of infant intolerance.

5.1 Colic and reflux: different names, same problem?Is it classic colic?
Colic, lactose overload, lactose intolerance, and allergy
Reflux, and the use of thickeners and less allergenic formulas
Changing positions and culture: where’s the gas?
Giving medications
Changing diets: extensively hydrolysed formula or human milk?
What do we know about particular infant formulas and allergy?
The aftermath of infant colic and the hazards of wrong diagnoses

5.2 Pay attention to the baby, not the book.

5.3 Dealing with immediate signals: fever and pain.Hot and bothered: the fever response in allergic children
Pain in allergic children: another symptom and signal

Chapter 6: Allergy, growth and other foods.

6.1 Food, growth, and the allergic infant.

6.2 Common causes of poor growth in infants under six months.1. Not enough nutrients go in
2. Too many nutrients are not absorbed or come out again
3. Not enough of what goes in can be used for growth

6.3 Survival and growth in babies born prematurely .

6.4 A weighty issue: the next wave of mother-blaming.Overweight mothers

Chapter 7: Widening the diet – more than white liquids.

7.1 Introducing other foods to breastfed infants: what to do?

7.2 Introducing other foods to artificially fed infants: what to do?Feeding formula and adding other foods: when and what
Introducing new foods to the formula fed infant

7.5 Four months or six? The debate over age.The 20th century background
Indicators of readiness for other foods
Patent baby foods: how safe?
Why then did the AAP in 1980 recommend four to six months?
Disadvantaging the breastfed (and women) to protect the artificially-fed
Health authorities’ reactions
One recommendation or two?
Resistance and controversy
The iron furphy
A question of taste?
A question of textures?
Independent reviews
Parents: “too dumb” to know what their babies eat?
The 2012 AAP statement
Questions this raises
What I would like to know about widening the infant diet
What parents need to understand
Where to from here?

Chapter 8: Thoughts, conclusions and beginnings.

8.1 Where is allergy going globally?

8.2 The underlying problem western society won’t face.

Supplementary Material

Appendices1. Is this you? A story heard too often
2. About guilt and responsibility
3. This is me: about the author